Gameplay
The Lands of Mythron is a collaborative building and storytelling group. Gameplay takes the form of conversing with other players, building and writing story chapters that are posted online, and competing in challenges alone or against other players for fun and personal glory. Getting Started The first step in joining the Lands of Mythron is to read the group's homepage all the way through. The homepage contains the majority of any information you will need to get started, from faction descriptions to useful links if you need help. Once you have read through the homepage, you need to choose a faction. Make sure to read through the faction threads, too! Once you have chosen a faction, you can go to the sign-up thread in the main group to introduce yourself. You can also see which factions need new members the most and ask current players for advice in that thread if you haven't chosen a faction yet, but keep in mind that most players are biased towards their own factions and their allies. Now that you're properly signed up, the next step is to build a character intro. A Character Intro is your first build in the LOM and, as the name suggests, should introduce your primary character. Many players use the same build to hold their scorecards. A scorecard is a list of all of a player's builds, points and ranks and is required for earning ranks and having your points added to the leaderboard in the points thread. Once you have finished all of these steps, you are a fully-fledged member of the Lands of Mythron with all of the normal member privileges. You can now get started on your own story, join in the current monthly challenge, start making progress towards ranks or just posting a bunch of freebuilds as you see fit. Points and Builds All builds in the Lands of Mythron are worth a certain amount of points. Points are used to earn ranks and allow players and factions to keep score. These are the various types of builds in the Lands of Mythron, each of which is worth a certain amount of points: Freebuilds Freebuilds are the generic, default type of LOM build and are worth 2 points each. You have total freedom to determine what goes into your freebuilds, as long as they follow the rules of the game. Players may post five freebuilds per month - if you want to post more, either find another type of build to do (there are always plenty of options) or combine multiple builds on a single post. Monthly Challenges The staff publishes a group-wide challenge once each month. Entering a monthly challenge is worth 5 points, and the staff judge the entries at the end of the month to give the winners further points. The player who posted the best build gets 5 more points for a total of 10, the best writer receives 3 points and second and third place may also be awarded with bonus points. Each monthly challenge ends when its respective month is over in every time zone worldwide - so, if you just miss midnight MOCpages time, you have a small grace period to finish getting your creation up. There are two kinds of monthly challenges: Universal Challenges and Regional Challenges. Universal Challenges ("UCs") Universal Challenges deal with events that affect the entire Lands of Mythron. Typically, they are triggered when the five factions are acting on some sort of recent event, such as the discovery of a source of gold or the outbreak of war. Most often, a UC describes a series of events and each faction's motives in this situation and then lists a separate set of missions, giving players different objectives based on their respective alignments. Very often UCs will chain together into multi-part plots that span several months. Regional Challenges ("RCs") Regional challenges are based on events that affect individual characters rather than different factions. They may include some background story describing an event such as a seasonal change or a contest that is being held, or they might simply give a generic prompt for players to base builds on. Examples include showing the Lands preparing for a harsh winter or having your character escape from a threat of your choice. RCs tend to be rarer than UCs these days, but still pop up from time to time, usually in-between different story arcs. Rank Challenges These are permanent challenges that are part of the requirements for players to earn ranks. Although the whole group shares the same ranks, each faction sets its own rank challenges, which can be found in their respective faction groups. Rank challenges are worth 3 points. Military-Builder Challenges ("MBCs") Every player is allowed to post one MBC per month. MBCs are different from other challenges because, rather than earning a set amount of points, players win 2 to 6 points based on the quality of their builds. 2 points represents an average LOM build, 3 points is a slightly-above-average build with some refinement but without something to make it stand out, 4 points is a high-quality build with only minor flaws (if any) and marks the top of the normal range, 5 points is a breathtaking project that may well be the best build the group has seen all month, and 6 points is an astonishing undertaking of the sort that LOM members will be talking about for weeks after it is posted. Although players may only post one MBC per month, they can spend as much time as they want working on them before they post; in fact, most MBCs that win 5 or 6 points probably took more than a single month. Allegedly the point of MBCs is to show a military feature available to one's faction, but most players stretch the boundaries on this pretty far. Ranks Ranks are titles earned by players that come with extra abilities. Each rank has a set of tasks that must be completed to unlock it, so they can also show a player's activity and devotion to the game. In-Game Leaders There are twenty cities in the Lands of Mythron, four in each faction's territory. One of each faction's four cities is the capital, which is ruled by the faction overseer. You may claim any city in your faction's territory to be ruler over, unless it is already claimed by another player. City rulers may not continue game-play or issue challenges, nor do they have special abilities. They will be regular players with the title of King (/Duke/ Governor/ Lord High Arumpha). However, no one may claim Reedus, which is ruled by the High King. --King Sadon of Mythron-- The High King, Sadon, is the ruler of Mythron and is in control of the current faction leader, Halhi 141. Sadon is relatively new to the throne, but still has full control over his country and the deep admiration of his people, and he keeps the hereditary title of "High King" from the days when Mythron ruled the lands of all five factions. --King Bartok of Rainos-- King Bartok is the ruler of Rainos, and is in control of the current faction leader, Gilbert Despathens. Bartok led Rainos in the war that freed it from Mythron's rule, but now acts more as a guiding influence and negotiator for his country than a traditional king. --General Reia Loda of Enalica-- Reia Loda, also known as the General, is the ruler of Enalica, and is in control of the current faction leader, Armon Russ. She pulled the islands into her golden grasp after stabilizing Invadir, and took advantage of Enalica's abundance of wealth and trade to transform the nation into a Golden Empire. --The Grand Council of Nerogue-- Nerogue is divided into positions such as the head of agriculture, head of military, head of treasury, etc. These heads make up the Grand Council, appointed by Darvainian, the character of David FNJ, former ruler of Nerogue. --Coordinator Sozo of the Outlaws-- Despite the fundamentally disunified nature of the Outlaws, Sozo the Grer has taken over the leadership of the Confederacy (previously having led the Organization) and the title of Coordinator. He is the character of Object of Legend. He shares his rule with the High Outlaw Council, a shadowy council of other Outlaws.